Late Ming sea owl

Chapter 43

Lin Hai never expected to hear this familiar voice here, and immediately froze after turning his head.If you look at the person carefully, you will see that although his face is haggard and his expression is depressed, there is no doubt that the unshaven man in front of him is Li Guozhu.

"Oh my God, it's really you!" Li Guozhu's face was full of excitement, he grabbed Lin Hai's arm and sighed but stopped talking.

Lin Hai's heart sank. It seemed that Li Guozhu's trip to the east was not going well. I wonder what is the current situation of Li Dan's gang?
He stood up and held Li Guozhu's shoulders, and said in a deep voice: "Brother, this is not the place to talk. You and I, brothers, find a secluded place to talk."

"Brother, please follow me." Li Guoshu calmed down a little and led Lin Hai to a hut.

This hut is a stilt-style building, with wooden piles several feet high at the bottom. The wooden floor is suspended on the wooden piles, and you have to rely on ladders to get in and out.The roof is also made of spliced ​​wooden boards, covered with thatch, and the surrounding eaves are low, looking like an inverted bottom of a boat.

This kind of stilt house is very common in Southeast Asia, mainly because the tropics are relatively humid. The pointed roof and low-hanging eaves are also to facilitate the drainage of rainwater.However, in Dongpan, stilt houses are only popular in the subtropical Taipei and Yilan areas, while in the southern tropics, earthen bamboo houses or pit-type houses are the main ones.

This may be because the indigenous people of Taipei and Yilan have common ancestors. These ancestors traveled from Fujian to Dongfan, then went to the Philippine Islands, and then returned to the stronghold of the Austronesian people, thus bringing the popular stilt houses in Southeast Asia to the East. Fan.

There are nearly a thousand such stilt-style thatched huts in Jinbaolishe, some of which are used to live in, and some of which are warehouses.There is a camphor wood bed and a back chair in Li Guozhu's thatched house. They are not painted, but they are carved with human figures, snake patterns and other patterns.

"Brother, please sit down." Li Guozhu pulled up the armchair and placed it behind Lin Hai. He sat on the camphor wood bed. It seemed that he had been living in this room for a while.

Lin Hai sat down and said, "How is the situation with your father?"

Li Guozhu shook his head sadly: "I don't know either. It's probably more bad than good... Dear brother, can you send me to the Fujian Zhongzuo Institute?"

Lin Haidao: "It's easy to say. How did I get here?"

Li Guoshu sighed and said: "After I broke up with my wise brother that day, I rushed back to Dongfan all night long to fight the wind. After leaving the Pearl River Estuary, I tied Huang Cheng and Zheng Zhihu to stones and sank them into the sea. Who knew that when I was about to arrive in Dongfan, my The boat hit a reef and sank in less than half an hour. Hundreds of brothers all fed the fish..."

"I hugged a mast and drifted in the sea for an unknown number of days. Fortunately, I drifted to Duoluoman and was rescued by native fishermen. After living in the Turen village for more than a month, the chicken coop man came to Duoluoman. Sands, I took their canoe to get here.”

"So that's it." Lin Hai pondered for a moment and said, "Huang Cheng is missing and his family can't find him. He must return to his hometown in Zhangzhou to report. Before he disappeared, he was invited to Wu Ji Inn by his brother. In this way, the great Huang Hexing in Zhangzhou The shopkeeper will know that the conspiracy has been exposed, and will definitely inform Zheng Zhilong to let him take action in advance."

Li Guozhu said helplessly: "What the wise brother said is absolutely true. I have also thought of this. I didn't kill this guy in Haojing at that time because I wanted to delay as much as possible the time for the Huang family to return to Zhangzhou to report the news. I didn't want to encounter a storm and delay it like this." For a long time, this is because people’s calculations are not as good as God’s calculations.”

Lin Hai was also a little disappointed when he heard this. He had originally hoped that Li Guozhu would know Zheng Zhilong's conspiracy in advance and be able to clean up the family smoothly. In this way, the Li family and his son would still be the leaders of the Chinese maritime merchants, and he would be able to count on him.Unexpectedly, Li Guozhu's ship ran aground during the storm.However, there was nothing that could be done at this point. Lin Hai's mind was racing. Li Guozhu was still of great use to him, so he had to help him no matter what.The first priority is to understand the situation of Li Dan's gang. What if Zheng Zhilong makes a hasty move and is killed by Li Dan?
The worst thing is to keep Li Guozhu's position in Hirado, which is his most important market resource at present.Otherwise, even if he successfully establishes supply channels in Zhejiang, market development will still take a lot of trouble. What's more, considering the flight distance and raw silk price, he can't find a better market than Japan anywhere.

With this in mind, Lin Hai roughly recounted his experiences during this period, omitting of course Wu Guoyi's invitation to go to Zhejiang to buy Qili silk.

Then, he stood up and said: "That day, in order to borrow my brother's tiger skin to save the last ship, I said in front of Li Zhongguo that you and I were sworn brothers. Now that I am in trouble, I meet my younger brother again. It can be seen that my fate is destined by God. , why don’t we just worship here, what do you think, brother?”

Li Guoshu was moved and said: "The current situation is unclear, but my father is in the open, and the pretty boy named Zheng is in the dark... My good brother now has a family business and is running a boat on the sea. He is not afraid of enmity with the boy named Zheng." ?”

Lin Hai stood up abruptly, his face filled with righteous indignation: "Such despicable and shameless people will be punished by everyone. Don't worry, brother, I will definitely help him when we clean up the house in the future."

Li Guoshu held Lin Hai's hand tightly, his eyes a little red: "Brother, you and I fell in love when we met in Haojing, and now we meet again in the chicken coop. All of this is God's will. Since we are good brothers, we will never give up. As brothers, we will be with you. I bow down to you, and we will share in the blessings and share the hardships in the future."

"Okay! Brothers work together to cut through gold." Lin Hai swore to the sky with emotion, "I swear to the sky here that one day I will help my brother kill Zheng Zhilong. If I violate this oath, heaven and earth will not tolerate it, and humans and gods will abandon it!"

For the ancients, poisonous oaths were not allowed to be uttered carelessly. Seeing Lin Hai impassionedly swearing this oath, Li Guozhu's eyes became completely wet.He has never experienced major setbacks since he was born, and this period can be said to be the most depressed period of his life.

He couldn't help but think of the time when his father, Li Dan, was in trouble during the Manila Massacre. He also befriended Jin Lan, a Chinese businessman from Nagasaki, Ou Huayu, in a desperate situation. Later, with the help of his adopted brother, he ran away to Japan and quickly opened up a new world with his super personal ability. The situation of households has only given off the second spring of the career.

Today, his situation is ten thousand times better than that of his father. At least he still has personal freedom, as well as Fujian's supply channels and Hirado's market resources.And just like his father met Ou Huayu in a desperate situation, he also met Lin Hai when he was at his lowest.

How do you know that all this is not God's will?Maybe after this hardship, he can become more courageous like his father and create a greater career.

Li Guoshu cheered up a little, and suddenly remembered that Ou Huayu had passed away five years ago, and his orphan Ou Zuoji was still in Nagasaki, and he was also married to Li Guoshu.When Li Dan and Ou Huayu became sworn sworn brothers, including their original brother Xu Xinsu, the situation today is exactly the same as then.

Thinking of this, Li Guoshu wiped the corners of his eyes and said: "Brother Xian, I used to have a sworn brother named Ou Zuoji. Today he is not here. You and I should also count Zuo Ji as our sworn brother."

So when they talked about their age, Li Guozhu was the eldest brother, Lin Hai was the second brother, and Ou Zuoji was the third brother.Immediately, Li Guozhu and Lin Hai came to the outside of the thatched house, piled earth on the spot for the stove, planted grass for incense, and became brothers with different surnames.

(End of this chapter)